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cannockwanderer.bsky.social
Ian Wallace
@cannockwanderer.bsky.social
390 followers 710 following 210 posts
Explorer of the U.K. and the world.

MSc student at University of Kent. Research interests include #walrus #wildlifetrade #ivory, connections between #anthropology and #conservation

Supporter of Crystal Palace Football Club 🔴🔵

🏳️‍🌈

All views are my own
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Ian Wallace
auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social
Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.
A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.
January 27, 2026 at 11:00 AM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Downfall satire. Excellent time for a comeback
tom.medsky.social Thomas [redacted] @tom.medsky.social · 20h
Downfall Bovino Edition. You're welcome.
January 27, 2026 at 9:38 AM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
Law enforcement without accountability is denial of justice
January 25, 2026 at 7:29 AM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
Trump dodged the Vietnam war draft. 457 British Soldiers died in Afghanistan. I know whose opinion to listen to. Clue: It’s not Trump
January 23, 2026 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
esa.int
📸 This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope image reveals the intricacies of the Helix Nebula in stunning detail! 🧬

🔗 esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/01/Webb_reveals_Helix_Nebula_in_glistening_detail

@science.esa.int @stsci.edu
A closeup of a small section of the Helix Nebula, an expanding shell of gas and dust. Thousands of orange and gold comet-like pillars stream upward from the bottom, like thin liquid blown up a sheet of glass. These pillars are around the circumference of the arced shell, which forms a partial orange semi-circle at the bottom. The pillars are more numerous and denser at the bottom, and darker red. They fade to orange and then yellow in the arc. In the top two-thirds, they are thinner and more golden, and it’s easier to see the black background of space. Several bright blue stars, some with diffraction spikes, are scattered throughout. A few larger stars are on the right side.
January 20, 2026 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
worldwildlife.bsky.social
Red Kite (Milvus milvus): A distinctive large, graceful raptor with a long, forked, rusty-orange tail. Flies with easy languid wingbeats & lazy glides, circling gracefully. Thank you again Matt Trevillion for sharing your photo taken in Cambridgeshire, UK. #redkite #kite #wildlife #nature #cambridge
January 19, 2026 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
esa.int
📸 This was our #WeekInImages 12-16 January 2026. 🧪🔭

🔗 esa.int/About_Us/Week_in_images/Week_in_images_12-16_January_2026
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image over the South Atlantic Ocean features a close-up view of the A23a iceberg, once the world’s largest. The unusually cloud-free image shows the first signs that the iceberg will soon disintegrate completely. Captured by Copernicus Sentinel-2 on 11 January 2026, this image shows active wildfires near Lake Rivadavia in Los Alerces National Park, Argentina, observed from low Earth orbit. Our fourth European Service Module arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States, last December. This powerhouse will propel Orion and its crew safely towards the Moon and back during the Artemis IV mission, and provide them with breathable air, drinkable water, and a comfortable temperature throughout their lunar journey.  This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a full view of the Circinus galaxy, a nearby spiral galaxy about 13 million light-years away. The inset highlights a close-up from Webb of the galaxy’s core, where infrared observations pierce through dust to reveal hot material feeding its central supermassive black hole. Webb’s image, made using the Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) tool on its NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) instrument, isolates hot dust in the immediate surroundings of the supermassive black hole, revealing that most of the infrared emission comes from a compact, dusty structure feeding the black hole rather than from outflowing material. In the Webb image, the inner face of the torus glows in infrared light, while the darker areas represent where the outer ring is blocking light.
January 18, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
shadowdogdesigns.bsky.social
600-year-old #Viking #shipwreck is the largest of its kind. The medieval ‘cog’ was nearly 92 feet long and featured castles on its bow and stern.

Link for more information and photos: www.popsci.com/science/larg...
January 16, 2026 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
bearlypolitics.co.uk
So the question now is this: who are you going to trust?

Doctors and PhDs who did the research, all specialising in foetal and maternal health?

Or an orange, geriatric former game-show host with multiple criminal convictions who famously struggles to pronounce the word “nuclear”?
Paracetamol is safe in pregnancy, says study refuting Trump autism claims Philippa Roxby and Jim Reed - Health reporters [Credit: Getty Images]
January 17, 2026 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
romanpalace.bsky.social
Early depiction of work-based shenanigans.
#MosaicMonday

Huqoq Synagogue, Israel.
blog.lostartpress.com/2024/04/07/r...
An ancient mosaic showing a variety of woodworkers, including a couple of men on the left sawing a vertical plank with a frame saw, and on the right two men fighting, one with a mallet and one using a frame saw as weapons.
January 5, 2026 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
theguardian.com
‘Zack is a phenomenal leader’: Siân Berry on the Green party’s next steps as membership doubles
‘Zack is a phenomenal leader’: Siân Berry on the Green party’s next steps as membership doubles
Since Zack Polanski took over as leader, the party has doubled its membership and its four MPs want to take on Reform’s anger and build community spirit
www.theguardian.com
December 30, 2025 at 11:28 AM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
Well done to everyone involved!

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

#illegalwildlifetrade #conservation #CITES #iucn
Snakes, spiders and rare birds seized by Border Force in month-long operation
Wildlife smuggling is serious organised crime that ‘fuels corruption and drives species to extinction’, Home Office says
www.theguardian.com
December 11, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
jessothomson.co.uk
The ET states that excluding trans people from both male and female changing rooms "is clearly liable to amount to indirect discrimination, which is likely to be very hard indeed to justify as proportionate" [811].
Lastly on this matter, we make some additional points for completeness. Paragraph 260 of FWS referred to persons being protected by section 19 where the protected characteristic was gender reassignment, and a PCP based on the claimant’s argument, which would have the ffect of excluding trans persons from both male and female changing rooms, is clearly liable to amount to indirect discrimination, which is likely to be very hard indeed to justify as proportionate, and if the trans person were to be told not to use any single sex space where there are no other alternatives that may, depending on the view taken of causation, be direct discrimination which cannot be justified.
December 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
There’s two people claiming to be England openers at the crease at the moment. This can’t be right as neither of them are out for a duck and both have reached double figures. Who are they and what have they done with the real Crawley and Duckett?

#cricket #auseng #theashes
December 6, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
admirablewomen.bsky.social
#OTD in 1967, Jocelyn Bell discovered pulsars & changed our view of the universe. 𝘉𝘶𝘵...

The #Nobel Prize in #Physics for their discovery went to to her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish & to astronomer Martin Ryle.

theconversation.com/fifty-years-...

#WomenInSTEM #astrophysics #MatildaEffect
Split image: Main photo — black-and-white portrait of young Jocelyn Bell Burnell in the 1960s, smiling broadly in front of the large lattice structure at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (SW of Cambridge in the UK). Inset (left) — color portrait of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell today, short graying hair, glasses, and a warm smile, wearing a blue jacket.
November 28, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
drdavidlroberts.bsky.social
BBC News - Puffins: Isle of Muck comeback 'proves restoration works' - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Puffins: Isle of Muck comeback 'proves restoration works'
Puffins have been seen on the Isle of Muck off Antrim for the first time in at least 25 years
www.bbc.co.uk
November 14, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
susiedentwords.bsky.social
Word of the Day is ‘catchfart’ (17th century): an obsequious individual who sucks up to the boss and always follows the political wind.
November 7, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
qi.com
Sea otters have underarm pockets that they keep food and their favourite stones in.
November 5, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
goodlawproject.org
The EHRC's position "leaves businesses and their staff caught in the crossfire of the increasingly bitter gender wars, while doing absolutely nothing to advance women’s rights or protect vulnerable women from abuse": Rachel Taylor MP. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Equality commission’s guidance after sex ruling is fundamentally unworkable | Letter
Letters: The EHRC has ignored warnings about the contradiction between possibly being sued for challenging someone’s gender versus being sued for failing to, says Rachel Taylor MP
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
qi.com
According to a medieval Irish legal text on cats called Catslechtae (Cat-Sections), if a cat is able to purr and to catch mice, it’s worth three cows and if it’s only able to purr, it’s worth one cow and a half.
November 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
earlymodernjohn.bsky.social
Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.
October 30, 2025 at 8:21 AM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
In a deep dank cave in the Amazon rainforest, there are yet undiscovered to science species of insects that was nearer to #Sarr than a Liverpool defender tonight #CPFC #LIVCRY
October 29, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
astroroyalscot.bsky.social
Well it's not every day that you get to stand on the site of a brand new Observatory! This is Clatteringshaws loch, in the Galloway Forest #DarkSky Park, home of the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scottish Dark Sky Observatory. Construction starts soon and like a phoenix SDSO will rise from the ashes! Re-opening mid-2027. 🥳🔭🧪
It's a dreich cloudy Autumnal day, but Catherine is nevertheless smiling in front of a very scenic loch with mountains in the distance. This patch of grass is about to have two observatory domes built on it. An old white stone brick single story building that will become the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory visitors centre. The trees in the distance have red autumn leaves on them. In the scrub a sign reads Welcome to The Scottish Dark Sky Observatory, and then below that a rather unwelcome "Private Land" :)
October 18, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by Ian Wallace
drdavidlroberts.bsky.social
🚨New Paper!🚨 A hedonic analysis of the market for Southeast Asian slipper #orchids (Paphiopedilum) in #Biodiversity & #Conservation by Robinson, Fraser, Balcombe & @drdavidlroberts.bsky.social @dice-kent.bsky.social #orchid #wildlifetrade doi.org/10.1007/s105...
A hedonic analysis of the market for Southeast Asian slipper orchids (Paphiopedilum) - Biodiversity and Conservation
Since the Victorian era, orchids have been in continuous demand within the horticultural trade. As a result, the entire family of over 29,000 species are listed in the Convention on International Trad...
doi.org
October 14, 2025 at 6:14 PM
cannockwanderer.bsky.social
#openaccess paper of the week. Researchers from #ChesterZoo #APHA and other teams develop a vaccine for EEHV which has a 80% mortality rate in juvenile elephants

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Client Challenge
www.nature.com
October 14, 2025 at 9:20 AM